It's really not that explicit, or else it isn't until I work out how to zoom in on my computer, and if I were going to go to that kind of trouble, I might as well look at actual porn. A spokesman for the Republican party said: "This picture is very distasteful. Why would anyone want to make a picture of our President from pornographic material?" You could probably file that under, "Well, if you have to ask ..."

There's a comment underneath it on the Sun website that says: "OK so the creator of this insult has a sick mind and is a porn junkie, has the image been checked for child porn images?" It says it all, doesn't it?

You can understand why Yeo got the commission in the first place; he doesn't seem to have an agenda, politically, so he'd have no problem portraying Bush, or Rupert Murdoch (a recent sitter), or anyone else of questionable ethical standing. I think his portraits flatter and are a bit schlocky - everyone's always shiny and statesmanlike. And just because it's made of porn, the Bush portrait is no exception to this (it's a lot more human and flattering than a straight photo printed in this issue of New Statesman, for instance).

As art, I think it's undermined by the schoolboy undertone - it is just like shouting "fuck" in assembly. It has no meaning, besides the meaning other people's outrage brings to it. So it can be very funny, but it's still puerile. As satire, it's undermined by the fact that a) it's not very tailored, is it? History won't remember Bush as the president who hated porn, or loved porn, or crusaded against porn only to appreciate it all the more feverishly in private; it would be more meaningful to have made a collage out of severed body parts. And b) what, exactly, is he objecting to about Bush? Not the man himself, whom he accepted a commission to paint. No, the fact that they pulled his commission! It's about as satirical as a plumber stuffing a rat down your drain after you didn't pay him (this has never happened. I always pay plumbers).